This police officer is also a farmer

With still five years to go in his illustrious police career, Senior Inspector Wilfredo Estrella is now assured of literally strolling in the meadows when he retires.

After going into a flourishing hog and hito raising venture plus the sale and distribution of feed products, Capitan, as he is known to his townmates and close friends, is now training his sights on ostrich breeding.

"Only few Filipinos know the potential of ostrich breeding. If properly managed, income derived from its meat alone can easily fetch more than a hundred thousand pesos per bird," Capitan explained.

An ostrich meat fetches P700 per kilo in the local market, with an adult bird weighing at least 150 kilos. "Soon ostrich meat will be in demand considering its tasty meat and its low cholesterol content," Capitan said.

Capitan, who heads the mobile patrol unit of the Western Police District, first learned of the profitability of ostrich breeding from co-farmers in his hometown of San Isidro in Nueva Ecija in 2002. Back then, Capitan said he had no knowledge whatsoever of ostrich breeding.

Not one to turn his back on challenges, he bought a pair of young ostrich birds for P34,000 from renowned breeder Lisa Gross, whose Australian husband reportedly brought the first pair of ostrich for breeding in the Philippines.

Born To Succeed

Two years after, the policeman-farmer now has eight fully grown ostrich grazing at his 2.1-hectare lot which also houses 500 hogs, a hito pond, an orchard of 50 fruit-bearing mango trees, a rice puddy and some 60 Cavear chickens.

Capitan said he had sold a pair of one-month-old ostrich birds for P40,000. He also donated a young ostrich to the Animalandia of former Manila Councilor Kim Atienza. "I want the Filipinos to personally see this exotic bird which originally came from Africa. Kim’s mini-zoo will allow people to get a better view, live, of the ostrich," Capitan said.

With no formal training in ostrich breeding, this accidental farmer relies on trial-and-error to improve the quality of his fowl.

"I’ve learned that ostrich can fend for themselves. Allow them to graze freely with abundant water supply and they tend to grow fast and fat," Capitan said. He once tried to put up a big shed on the grazing area of the ostrich, but they shy away from it. "It seems the ostrich prefer much sunlight." Ostrich are already dehydrated if their urine is clear, according to Capitan.

Feeding ostrich is also not very complicated since they eat anything, including cereals and lots of kangkong leaves. After two years, the birds start to lay eggs.

Capitan said a healthy adult ostrich can lay as much as 60 eggs a year, which normally hatch in 48 days in an incubator. "Sixty hatchlings multiplied by P20,000 is a clear P1.2-million earnings for the breeder," Capitan said. However, he lamented that because he has no incubator of his own, half of the eggs failed to fertilize, "possibly due to handling during its trip to the incubator," which he rents for P700 per day.

Capitan hopes to acquire his own incubator in the near future to increase his income from ostrich breeding. At present he has eight eggs in incubator waiting to be hatched.

The police officer is optimistic that soon Filipinos will appreciate ostrich meat, which he described as "mas masarap pa sa baka at hindi maanggo. Wala pang cholesterol."

A Farmer By Chance

A 2003 winner in the Search for Successful Member-Entrepreneur launched by a police savings loan association, Capitan started to become interested in farming in 1996 after watching the TV program of farmer-broadcaster Gerry Geronimo’s "Ating Alamin."

With an initial capital of P1.5 million borrowed from a bank and two police savings and loan associations, he started a piggery and fishpond culture.

He started with a couple of sows and eight fatteners. He also went into tilapia fingerlings, alternately with hito fingerlings, in his two fishponds. Soon, his piggery had a population of 100 sows and 400 heads of fatteners which include the Dollan, Petrine and Large White varieties.

Capitan said he employs only a total of four workers and a veterinarian for his piggery since the farm is fully mechanized. "There are times that my supply could not meet the demand of the hog dealers."

For his fishpond, Capitan thinks the growing up of hito is more profitable since there is a demand for the fish all-year long. With 70,000 fingerlings, his two fishponds could produce in three to four months three to five tons of fully grown African hito which he sells from P50 to P55 a kilo.

"If there is an oversupply of tilapia among fishpond owners which results in low prices in the market, I switched to hito culture. That’s what I call business strategy," Capitan said with a wink.

The farmer-policeman also tried goat raising but eventually disposed of all the animals when they started feeding on his young mango trees.

‘I’ll Teach Policemen To Be Farmers’

Capitan said he would share the secret of his success as an agribusinessman to his interested colleagues in the police service and his townmates.

Since assuming the command of the Western Police District’s mobile patrol unit in October last year, Capitan requested his eldest son to quit his job as medical representative to act as the overseer of his farm.

"I could not give my 100 percent attendance to the farm now since my present assignment requires my presence on the job 24 hours a day. I only manage to visit the farm if there is time," Capitan said.

However, Capitan is keeping a close watch over his farm through calls from his son, either by long-distance landline or through text messages.

"I want to erase the stigma that policemen get rich only through corruption. Farming is one of the ways to earn decently," he said.

At the same time, Capitan calls on the government to completely ban the importation of hogs, since small raisers are the ones gravely affected. "We cannot compete with these big-time and moneyed importers. We need government intervention."